VICTORIA - For all of the optimism expressed by Premier Christy Clark in year-end interviews, there was no disguising that her return to public life had brought one unpleasant turn after another.

“These last nine months have been dealing with issues that were on my desk when I got here,” she told Rob Shaw of the Victoria Times Colonist in a mid-December interview. “Lots of these things I’ve been dealing with are not issues of my own making.”

“People have probably seen more of me cleaning up messes from before,” she told The Vancouver Sun’s Jonathan Fowlie at about the same time. “It’s been pretty uncomfortable to have to get up every day and say we want to understand what the problem is we’re fixing before we figure out how to fix it.”

Regrets? One couldn’t help assuming she’d had a few, not least because of her protestations that there were none.

“I don’t regret doing it ... I don’t regret it ... I don’t regret it at all.” This in the space of a little more than a minute, during the interview with Fowlie. “I’m not complaining about it,” she told Shaw.

Whatever you say, premier.

But it is not as if anyone forced her to seek the job. Moreover, the unfinished business on the premier’s desk should not have come as a complete surprise to the successful host of a public affairs radio show.

In any event, after all her non-complaining in those and other year-end interviews, she went on to express the hope disguised as a prediction that things would soon be looking up.

“Going into the new year, I think we have a chance to really put a different stamp on it,” she said. “We’ll be moving into the next chapter, which will be the Christy Clark chapter of this B.C. Liberal government.”

But I don’t see a lot of basis for presuming that 2012 will be any less bumpy for her and the B.C. Liberals than 2011.

The economic outlook remains uncertain, despite impressive developments like the new capital investments being lined up in the northwest and elsewhere.

Barring an unlikely surge in revenues, the government probably won’t be able to meet its target of balancing the budget by the end of the coming fiscal year, necessitating yet another amendment to its increasingly risible balanced budget legislation.

Adding to the fiscal challenge, the Liberals will continue to be beset by demands for them to spend more and tax less, never mind the inherent contradictions between those two sets of expectations.

Presuming the Liberals can free up some tens of millions of dollars for the most pressing priorities — community living, income assistance and court services should top the list — that would still leave nothing for public sector compensation.

Most public sector agreements are up for renewal this year. Most public sector workers agreed to hold the line on wages and benefits for two years in the last bargaining round. None is inclined to do so again. But even a one-per-cent across the board increase in total compensation would cost the treasury $200 million a year.

The Liberals are pledged to hold the line at no net increase in compensation, offering only to share the benefits from any increases in productivity or other savings in the cost of providing existing services.

A defensible position in straightened economic circumstances and one that has been supported by a decisive segment of public opinion in the past.

But to make the case, the government needs to bring clean hands to the negotiations and people have good reason to doubt the Liberals’ good intentions on this and other matters.

“The brand was pretty damaged when I took over,” as Clark acknowledged to Fowlie. “I have a big job to rebuild that trust.”

That’s even harder so long as her government continues to collect the tax that, more than anything, damaged the Liberals’ relationship with an electorate that had entrusted them with three successive terms of government.

The harmonized sales tax, despite being voted down last summer, is scheduled to remain in place for another 15 months, much to the regret of most consumers, many businesses and more than a few Liberals.

Whatever the merits of harmonization, there’s little benefit to the provincial economy from maintaining the doomed tax regime longer than necessary.

Clark could boost her own chances of turning the page if she could move up the date for phasing out the HST and restoring the provincial sales tax.

The net loss of revenue to the provincial treasury, about $40 million a month based on finance ministry figures, would surely be offset by the political benefit of being rid of the HST once and for all.

Instead, the Liberals may find themselves struggling to complete the transition by the current deadline of March 31, 2013. At least that is the impression gained from finance ministry documents obtained by Fowlie last month under provincial access-to-information legislation.

Consequently, for all Clark’s hopes, she’s more likely to spend the year dogged by the legacy of her predecessor combined with a growing sense of her own failure to make a fresh start.

vpalmer@vancouversun.com